Lullaby
by Sandwich Shop Mayo
Summary: Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light you and I'll be safe and sound.
1. Chapter 1

"Well, stranger, we feed them strangers."

The second the words registered, Rick sprung into action. But he wasn't quick enough. Everything went too dark and too fast and the last thing he saw was the image of the Governor, grinning.

* * *

He felt the pain in his head even though he wasn't fully conscious yet. It was sharp and sent rolling waves of ache and burning through his body. He brought his hand up with his eyes still closed, but something, someone, held his arm down. Instinctively, he opened his eyes and began to struggle.

"_Don't_, you'll make your injury worse."

His vision was blurry and he saw two figures in front of him. Slowly, the two figures merged into one and he looked at the person. It was a young girl with long brown hair, braided down her back. She wore a white coat and gave him a warm smile.

Rick sat up, confused. "What-"

"You were knocked out," she told him. "Don't worry, I patched you up. Just a few stitches. Here." She handed him two pills and he eyed them suspiciously. "It's just aspirin. For the pain."

Rick was so desperate for the pain to subside that he grabbed them and drank them down with the glass of water she offered him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Rick continued to eye her. She seemed kind, warm, and loving, but everyone he'd met so far in this place had turned out to be hostile and crazy. Could it be an act? It was definitely an act. These people were good at that. Suddenly he wished he hadn't taken those pills.

He looked around the room. It was a small infirmary, much smaller than the one in the prison. She barely had any supplies, mostly stuff he'd find in a doctor's office.

"I'm Alice, by the way," she told him, extending her hand.

He looked at it for a moment before he reached for it. "Rick."

"Rick, they're gonna come for you soon," as she said this there was a warning in her tone that didn't go amiss. "I'm gonna give you more aspirin, but you'll have to hide it."

"Why will I need more–" Oh. Right. He understood. They weren't done with him yet.

She emptied half the bottle into his hand and he put them in his pocket. When he looked up at her again, her expression had changed to one of extreme sympathy.

"I'm sorry," Alice said, and at that moment they burst through the doors and suddenly it was dark again.

* * *

He came to his senses to catch the last part of his captor's inquiry.

"For the last time, _where _is your group?" the Governor said as he paced the room.

Rick eyed the big guy to his left. He held a bat and Rick knew the guy was just itching to use it.

"I told you, I don't know," Rick insisted. "We got lost and ended up here. I don't even know if they're alive."

The guy with the bat began to move, but the Governor stopped him. "That's not what your Chinese friend said."

Rick growled at him. "What did you do to him?"

The Governor smiled. "Don't worry, he's okay. For now." He stood tall and turned to the big guy. "I have a better punishment for liars."

The rage Rick was feeling for the man was immeasurable. How he wished he could untie his hands. Apparently Glenn hadn't escaped, but he hoped Daryl did. Had Daryl even been there? The wound to his head was making him all crazy. Maybe this was a dream. He hoped it was a dream.

"I wanna watch him play the final game."

Rick sneered at the Governor's evil grin and vowed, if he got himself out of this one, to kill the son of a bitch with his bare hands and watch him die slowly. Painfully.

Minutes later, they were taking him somewhere. He didn't know where. They put a bag over his head, just in case he escaped. They were making sure that if he did, he wouldn't know where the exit was. Suddenly he was inside a building. It smelled old, moldy, disgusting. He nearly gagged at the smell but his guards seemed to be used to it. They brought him to a stop and pressed something to his back. A gun, he knew.

"Try and you're dead."

Finally they removed the bag from his head and untied his hands. An overwhelming urge to turn around and fight them came to him, but he knew what the consequences of that would be.

They opened a door and pushed him inside, closing it behind quickly. It took a while for his eyes to adjust and even more for his brain to kick in. But suddenly he knew what this room was.

It was a cell.

Ironic, that. He'd found freedom in one jail and was now captive in another.

At least there was a cot in this one, and a sink off to the side with a plastic cup next to the faucet. No toilet. The wall in front of him was made of concrete as well as the wall behind him, along with a steel door. The side walls were merely bars. A small window at the top of the wall in front of him, barred. Sunlight streamed through it and he could see all the particles of dust flying in the air like glitter. He stood on the cot and tried to look out. He could see very little, just a few houses, very few people. He shook the bars but knew it was useless.

Frustrated and angry still, he sat on the cot and tried to think of a plan, a way to get out of there. His mind was blank, though, and every time he tried to think too much the injury began to throb. He remembered the pills Alice had given him, but he wouldn't take them just yet. The injury to the head would be nothing compared to what he knew would come. He needed to ration them.

He looked around. This place didn't seem like a jail, nor a police station, either. It looked like it was built for just one purpose, and not to keep criminals in.

His eyes landed on the next cell over and for the first time he noticed he wasn't alone. There was a body slumped on the floor. He frowned and stood up, and as he approached it his pulse quickened and his heart sank deep. He fell to his knees in front of it with a sigh and a feeling of dread.

It was Andrea.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

Andrea lay just a few feet away from the bars that separated their two cells. Rick's heart was beating fast and his breathing was ragged. He attempted to get a look at her, a better one. Maybe it wasn't Andrea but someone who looked like her?

But it _was _her. The hair was unmistakable. He remembered the pony tail and the boots. Remembered her last words to him,_ 'then maybe you should stop leaving' _(if only he'd listened to her, he wouldn't be here. He'd be safe back at the prison).

It was Andrea.

But they'd told him Andrea was dead. How is this possible?

"Andrea," he called to her, careful not to speak too loud as to not alert the guards. He tried to reach his fingers to her, but they barely grazed her arm. "_Andrea_."

He grazed harder, scratching her skin, which caused her to moan a little. "Andrea."

She whimpered in response, and when she felt his touch finally her body jumped and she rushed away from him in fear, dragging her body backwards until she hit the bars on the other side. She seemed confused and terrified as she looked around the cell, her eyes landing on the door as if she was expecting them to come back for her.

"It's okay," Rick tried to reassure her. "It's me."

At the sound of his voice, Andrea jumped again. When she made him out her expression changed. She looked at him the way he'd looked at her just minutes prior. Like she was seeing a ghost.

"It's okay," he assured her again, and tears formed in her eyes.

"Rick?"

He smiled at her; she sounded so small and scared. "Yeah."

Slowly she stood up, leaning on the bars for support. When she began to walk over he stood as well. She was having trouble walking. She pushed on, and stopped 3 feet away from the bars.

She analyzed him, like she was reading something in his face, like she didn't trust him. He didn't blame her. He'd stopped Daryl from going back for her and for that, she probably hated his guts. But he wasn't expecting the words that came out of her mouth.

"You're not real," she told him. It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

Rick's eyebrows furrowed in sympathy. He was surprised by her words, but at the same time, he really wasn't. If her mental state matched her physical state, then the words made sense. "I am, Andrea," he said, reaching for her hand but she wouldn't touch him.

"No," she said, dropping her head while shaking it stubbornly and shutting her eyes tight. "Dale... he came by, too. And Amy. And now you? Why won't you people leave me alone!"

Rick's heart broke. He didn't know what it would take, but he would kill that asshole, he would. "Andrea look at me."

She shook her head, eyes still closed.

"_Look_," he insisted.

She opened them slowly and looked at him, but with so much fear.

"I'm real," Rick told her, keeping his hand up. "Here, touch."

She hesitated as she looked at the hand. It was right in front of her, moving, but she still feared it. Biting the bottom of her lip, she slowly brought up her own hand and when her fingers touched his palm she jumped in place. She pressed her hand harder to his to make sure, _really_ make sure, and when he wrapped his hand around hers she looked up at him with fresh tears in her eyes.

"Rick?"

He smiled at her. "Yeah."

With a pained expression she rushed to him, but the bars allowed them very little contact. She touched his arms, his chest, his face, to _really_ make sure it was him and not a ghost, like Dale and Amy.

He did the same because well, maybe they were _both _dead, and this was some sort of purgatory. But her skin felt alive, her tears were wet, and he felt her touch.

"I thought you were dead," Rick told her, feeling the urge to hug her but the damn bars were in the way.

"Kinda starting to wish I was," she told him.

The reality of their situation hit him hard and he sighed loudly. She'd lost all hope of escape, he could see it in her eyes. He held her hand and gave it a squeeze. When he looked at her again his heart broke at the broken expression on her face, and the old and fresh bruises in it. "What are you doing here?"

"What are _you _doing here?"

Rick took a deep breath. God, the stench of that place was overwhelming. He didn't know where to start and Andrea kept touching his face like she didn't trust her mind and maybe he really _was_ a hallucination.

"We saw a helicopter–"

"We?"

Rick sighed. "Daryl and Glenn. We followed it, ran into one of his people."

Andrea looked at him, worried. "They're okay?"

He clenched his jaw. Last time he'd seen Glenn he was being taken away and Daryl... he didn't even remember seeing Daryl. "I don't know."

"He has them?"

Rick nodded and wiped the new tears that came. "What happened to you?"

She sighed, not knowing if she could tell him without falling apart. The memories were painful, and came to her in dreams that always left her shaking in the middle of the night.

"There were two walkers going after Carol. Lori told me to go save her. One came up from behind. I shot it, but it fell on top of me. Carol took off running and T-Dog drove away," she said. "I got to my feet but everyone just sped away. I tried to flag you down, but you didn't hear me."

And now he felt like the world's biggest pile of shit. He gave her hand a squeeze. "I'm sorry. Andrea, I didn't know. I would've stopped, I would've–"

"It's okay," she said with a soft smile. "I didn't blame them and I don't blame you. You did what you had to do."

He felt like shit hearing those words, but he egged her on. He was completely devoted to getting them out of there, and he needed to know everything he could about these people. Andrea was his only outlet.

"They came after me," she continued. "I had to run all night and all day. But they just kept coming, they never get tired."

His hand stroked her arm to offer the very little comfort he could.

"Finally, I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't run, I could barely walk. There were three of them and I only had my pocket knife. I took two out, but I was too tired to get the third one. I knew I was gonna die. I mean, I struggled anyway, but I was so sure I was gonna die. But she saved my life."

"Who?"

"Michonne," Andrea said and her eyes wet again. "He has her, Rick, and he's doing horrible things to her and I can't help her."

"Shh, it's okay," Rick crooned, putting his hand to the side of her face to calm her. "Who is she?"

"She saved my life," she repeated, like it was so important. "She killed the third walker, with her sword."

Rick began to worry that Andrea was not all there in the head. First she was seeing ghosts and now a zombie killing woman with a sword?

"I'm not crazy!" she said as if she could read his mind.

"I know you're not. I'm sorry," he said, lowering his head to make eye contact. "How did you end up here?"

"We just ran into a few of them in the woods. They were nice. They're nice at first," she said, and he felt the venom in her voice when she talked about them. "That's how they get you in."

"No kidding," Rick said with a sigh.

Andrea stayed quiet for a bit. It occurred to Rick that she wasn't really talking to him. She was just letting things out. He knew because her mind was jumping all over the place. She was traumatized and scared. As a cop he'd seen that a lot.

"He wanted _me_. He was just going to send Michonne to die at the arena, but she offered to trade places with me. She's suffering because of me," she sniffed. "She made me take her place because she wanted to protect me from him. And now she's probably dead."

Rick closed his eyes and sighed at the information. The entire group had been at the prison, in comfortable beds, eating three meals a day, warm, cozy, safe, and together. Hell, just yesterday Lori was throwing a tantrum because the only fruit they had was canned peaches. Meanwhile Andrea was in hell. She'd been in hell since the day the farm fell and if he didn't get her out she was going to die here. Not in a nice way, either.

"Did you fight?"

"Yeah," she said. "They made me fight some guy. A big one. At least 150 pounds heavier than me. I knew he was gonna kill me, so my only choice was to make sure the walkers got to him. I pushed him towards them. It was just sheer luck that he tripped and fell."

Rick clenched his jaw hard. He still remembered the arena. A giant pit with walkers chained to the fences. Two people were thrown in to fight to the death. If you wanted to live you had to both kill your opponent and avoid the walkers. He'd seen a match earlier. It was gruesome and inhumane, but the crowd ate it up. People placed bets, cheered, called for blood... the thought of seeing Andrea in that situation was horrific.

"They weren't happy. I wasn't supposed to win," she continued. "I killed one of them and was sentenced to stay here, for however long they feel like, which is probably forever."

He stroked her arm tenderly. "I won't let that happen, Andrea."

His optimism did nothing to alleviate her situation. She nodded because she felt like she had to, but she didn't believe him.

Rick looked at her and saw the hopelessness in her eyes. He hated it. It'd taken her so long to overcome the death of her sister, to become the strong woman she was at the farm. And now they'd stripped her down to nothing. She even seemed shorter, just a delicate little thing that he feared he might break if he touched her too roughly. He couldn't think about it too much because the anger he felt every time he did was blinding. And he needed to stay focused if he was gonna get them out of there.

He looked around. "What is this place?"

"Never seen the outside of it," Andrea told him. "They always cover my head with a bag."

"Yeah, they did it to me, too."

She sniffed one last time, the tears gone and replaced with the exhaustion they brought on. "You'll rarely see them, either. In here. They bring me a meal every once in a while. They escort me to the bathroom if I have to go."

"Yeah, they sound like wonderful hosts," Rick said bitterly.

"I suppose it's better than having to go here," Andrea said. She looked at him and squeezed his hand. "They won't come for you tonight. Tomorrow."

Rick looked at her. "What are they doing to you?"

He regretted asking the question right away. She looked down and didn't cry because she was fresh out of tears. He put his hand on the side of her face and made her look up but she avoided eye contact. "Andrea, what are they doing to you?"

She hesitated, looking aside, wondering if they were listening. They were sneaky like that. Hell, for all she knew, Rick was another one of their spies. Her brain wasn't working right. She didn't know anything anymore. But there was a warmth in Rick that made her feel that maybe he was okay. That hint of goodness made her reach out to him and answer. "They say they're experiments."

Rick frowned. "What kind of experiments."

"I don't know," she told him. "I never know. I can't ever remember."

"Do they hurt you?" he asked her and the answer was obvious by the bruises and cuts on her.

"I guess they do, sometimes. I don't know." She looked at him pleadingly. "Rick, if you get a chance, any chance, just take it and leave."

"I'm not leaving you behind, Andrea. I did it once; I'm not doing it again," he told her sternly.

"But if you have to–"

"I'm getting you out of here," he told her adamantly. "No matter what."

She closed her eyes and sighed, letting her body lower to the floor. "You're so stupid."

Rick sat down, too. She leaned her head against the bars and he wished he could comfort her but with the bars in the way all he could do was hold her hand. Minutes passed and they stayed like that, and Rick began to wonder if she was right. If he was stupid. How was he going to get them out of there? And they had Glenn, too. And possibly Daryl. Four of them plus the Michonne girl made five. How were they going to make that happen?

"Did Carol get away?"

Rick huffed. Unbelievable. After the highway Carol hadn't even mentioned Andrea once, and here was Andrea, nearly beaten to death and worrying about Carol. "Yeah."

"Who did we lose?"

He swallowed hard. "Jimmy, Patricia... and Shane."

He waited for a reaction, but got none. She stayed quiet for a while. He thought she'd fallen asleep, but then she took a deep breath. "He was losing it. This world was killing him."

He looked down, remembering that night. She was right. Shane wasn't fit for this world. He hadn't seen it before, but he saw it now. Shane was manpower, he was smart, a soldier of war. But a different kind of war. Not this war.

She didn't say anything more and neither did he. He just held her hand and stroked her skin with his thumb, and she curled against the bars. He wondered at one point how she could be comfortable in that position, but she never moved or complained. If he closed his eyes, he probably wouldn't even know she was there and it made him angry again. She'd been such a huge presence, such a force. You couldn't avoid Andrea. Even after the death of her sister, she had this energy about her that made everyone aware of her at all times. Now she was nothing, no energy, no presence, just skin and bones. It hurt to look at her like that, but it made him even more determined to find a way out.

She was right. They didn't come for him that night. But they came for her. Rick struggled against the bars, calling them all kinds of names, adrenaline rushing through him and he felt like an animal, but it was like they weren't seeing him or hearing him. He banged against the door, shouted at them to leave her alone, but it was useless.

Once again he shook the bars of the windows, but they wouldn't budge. Sighing loudly, he fell on the cot and tried to think. But his mind was rushing. He needed to get out of there. He needed to get Andrea out. If he didn't, he knew they were going to kill them or worse, kill him and do to Andrea what they were probably doing to that Michonne girl. He needed to find a way out, but saw none. This place was guarded, the town full of people who would recognize them instantly.

He sighed, defeated. For the moment he saw no way out, but tomorrow they would come for him, and he'd think of something then.

An hour or two later, the door to Andrea's cell opened and someone pushed her inside. She fell to the floor and he rushed over quickly. "Andrea."

She didn't move and he reached for her again. This time she was much closer, so he gripped her arm and pulled her towards the bars. He managed to sit her up, somewhat, and slapped the side of her face lightly. "Andrea."

Andrea let out a little moan. With the little energy she had, she opened her eyes and looked around the cell. When he called out her name again she finally looked at him and frowned. Her eyes were blinking slowly, empty. "Rick?"

He gave her a little smile. "Yeah."

Her eyebrows furrowed further as she looked at him, like she was seeing him for the first time. "What are you doing here?"

He banged his head against the bars and felt like crying. What the hell were they doing to her? Who were they? Were they giving her drugs? Beating her up? What? And why? What did they want?

Finally, he looked at her, forcing a smile for her benefit, he caressed her cheek. "I came to take you home."

She smiled weakly and closed her eyes, leaning her head against the bars. "That's nice."

And just like that, she was gone.

tbc


	3. Chapter 3

A terrible body ache woke him up the next morning. He shifted in place and that made the pain much worse. Had Lori thrown him out again? What did he do this time? Did he forget to turn the washing machine on?

But after a moment he realized he wasn't home. And then it all came crashing down on him.

Right. Woodbury.

He still wasn't used to the smell of the cells but he tried not to think about it. He looked as his companion. She still slept, curled onto the bars, holding his hand. He wondered just how in the hell she could find rest in that position, but he quickly realized she'd been having it rough out in the woods and here. She was probably used to pain.

He remembered the night before and wondered what state she'd be in today. He didn't have to wait long to find out. She stirred a few minutes later. There was a new cut on her temple. He hadn't noticed it the night before. She brought her hand up to it and she frowned like she was annoyed by it, like she was thinking, _'great, another one.'_

"Are you okay?" The second he spoke she jumped back, looking at him with wide eyes but then she breathed and relaxed. _  
_

"Thought that was a bad dream," she said.

Rick looked at her. She seemed lucid. He was still weary, though. She was lucid yesterday and then was not, like someone had turned off a switch. "How are you feeling?"

Andrea sighed and rubbed her eyes tiredly. "I've been better."

He half smiled sadly and stood up. As he did so, every bone and muscle in his body hurt. "Me too."

"You have a cot, you know," Andrea told him.

Truthfully, the cot didn't look that much more comfortable than the floor. He didn't care about the cot. He needed information. He needed to start formulating a plan to get them out of there. He turned to Andrea. "Do you remember last night?"

She shook her head and sat down, staring ahead. "It'll come to me eventually, I think."

He approached the bars again, because he just couldn't let it go. "Andrea, what do they do to you?"

She didn't reply, just stared straight ahead like she was looking at something. But there was nothing there. "They're nice sometimes, that's the problem."

Rick sighed, dropping his head. She was the only person who could help him, and she wasn't even all there. He knew he couldn't lose hope, but with Andrea like this he didn't know how he'd be able to get out.

"Rick, I'm not crazy," she told him worriedly, like it was something important he just needed to know.

"I know you're not," he told her. Truthfully he didn't think she was crazy, but they were obviously messing with her. Giving her drugs. It _had_ to be drugs. But what kinds of drugs? And what for? Why? He needed to know. Andrea was obviously a big part of the puzzle. She was important to them, or else they would've fed her to the walkers a long time ago. But why did they need her? What were they using her for?

He felt like if he figured it out, it would help him find a way out of there. But she couldn't help him in her state.

Doors opened and closed quickly and when he looked over there was a tray of food on the floor. Andrea retrieved hers like she was on autopilot. He looked at his with reproach. He didn't trust these people. What if the drugs were in the food?

"You should eat," Andrea told him. "You'll need the energy, trust me."

He retrieved his tray without wanting to, but his stomach protested loudly and he saw no other way. It was a sad breakfast: a hard boiled egg, a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of orange juice. Not much. Certainly not like the feasts they'd been enjoying back at the prison, but it calmed his stomach.

After breakfast Andrea sat against the corner of her cell, leaning on the bars that divided them. He came to sit there, too, because what else was there to do? They sat in silence for a while and it was bothering him but it didn't seem to bother her. She just stared straight ahead and it occurred to him that she was just a body. There didn't seem to be anything in there anymore. She just blinked randomly. Guilt came back to claim over him. If he'd allowed Daryl to go back, if he'd given her a chance...

"Where did you go?"

He nearly jumped when she spoke. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "After the farm?"

"Hm."

"We kinda wandered for a while," Rick said. "They weren't too happy with me."

"Why?"

He sighed again. Those had been harsh times, though looking at Andrea, he knew not as harsh as he thought. The group didn't trust him, didn't respect him. They were expecting him to lead them, but then questioned his every move. They'd been angry, scornful, dubious. Even meek and quiet Carol became vile and ungrateful. Lori all but walked away from him emotionally and just a day before, when he left with Daryl and Glenn, she'd yet to come back to him. He hated to think about those days.

"It doesn't matter," he answered her. "But we found a new place."

She looked at him, and off into the distance, far, far away, he saw traces of old Andrea when she gave him a ghost of a smile. "Yeah?"

Rick smiled. "A prison."

She huffed dryly. "A prison, Rick?"

"It's pretty perfect, actually," he said. "Plenty of room, tons of food, medical supplies, guns and endless ammo. It's fenced, secure... it's pretty perfect."

Andrea smiled a little. "Sounds nice," she said. "Too bad..."

He looked at her when she stopped and her smile was gone. She looked away from him but he reached for her hand and brought it over to his cell to press it against his chest. "You'll see it. I'm gonna take you there. We'll get out, Andrea."

"Yeah," she whispered but he could tell she didn't believe him. And frankly, he wasn't too sure himself. He had the determination and strength, sure. He'd try and try again until he either succeeded or they killed him. But he didn't even know where they were, didn't know how many guards were outside, if there were any. They didn't have any weapons, had no idea where the exit was, and worst of all, Andrea's mind was broken.

But he'd try. He owed her that much.

She looked at their hands and the ghostly smile returned. "How's Carl?"

Rick grinned. "He's good. He misses you. Glenn misses you, too. They talk about you all the time."

Her smile widened a bit. "I think about them all the time."

He looked at her and for a moment he thought, maybe Andrea wasn't gone. Maybe she was still in there. Was that possible? Her mind was broken, sure. They'd completely destroyed her, physically and mentally, but something about that smile told him they hadn't destroyed her soul.

Rick kissed her hand with a new determination. They weren't lost yet. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. He'd get Andrea back and when he did, they'd get out. He knew he could find her. She was still in there. And she didn't know it yet, but she was going to save them both.

* * *

Hours later, he was glad he trusted Andrea.

They came for him and took him to another building, where the Governor was waiting. Rick knew it was gonna be bad when he saw the collection of stun guns. But he showed no fear. He'd rather die than show fear to that piece of shit.

"Howdy, stranger," the Governor said as the men sat him down and strapped him up. "Enjoying Woodbury so far?"

"So far," Rick humored him.

The Governor chuckled. "I'm afraid the next hour won't be as fun. For you at least. I'll be having a blast. So to speak."

Rick gave him his most threatening look. He almost asked what he was doing to Andrea, but then realized maybe it would be best if the Governor didn't know he and Andrea knew each other. He might hurt her, too, more than he already was. So he said nothing. He decided to say nothing until the very end. If they killed him, so be it. At least he'd die knowing the Governor won't know about the prison. He just prayed to God that Glenn won't open his mouth.

"I asked you a question yesterday," the Governor said. "I'll give you a second chance. Where is your group."

Rick said nothing, and groaned at the first shock of electricity. The session didn't last long. The Governor kept asking the same question, he refused to say a word, and each time they shocked him longer and longer, with a higher and higher voltage, until eventually he passed out. But he went out gladly, knowing the prison and the group would be safe for another day.

* * *

He came to just a few yards away from his quarters. Because he'd passed out, they hadn't put a bag over his head. Rick took the opportunity to try and look around, see where he was, where the exit was located, what his building looked like. But his eyes were blurry and seeing double again, and he only made out the ground they were dragging him through. Then suddenly, that stench again, and before he knew it they were shoving him into his cell.

"_Rick_."

He rolled on his back to see two Andreas kneeling by the bars that separated their cells.

"Rick, are you okay? What did they do?"

He breathed hard, pain gripping at every inch of his body. He wanted nothing more than to pass out again, but try as he might, he couldn't.

"Rick."

Andrea sounded worried, which meant he wasn't looking good. With the little energy he had he dragged himself over, and when he was within reaching distance she pulled him, pressing his back against the bars. She reached her arms in and gripped him, wrapping one arm around his chest and as her other hand held his forehead up.

"What did they do?"

He wasn't sure he had the energy to talk and everything hurt, so he said nothing. They stayed like that for a good while, him breathing hard, trying to will the pain away, feeling the volts of electricity still, and her hugging him, running her hands through his hair and trying to comfort him.

He still couldn't talk when they came for her. This time, and just this one time, Andrea turned to them and cried, "no, please, he's sick!" She held on to Rick strongly but they grabbed her and ripped them apart. Rick turned around, trying to stop them, but there was no use. Andrea was gone.

He lay on the floor, looking at the ceiling. He prayed for this to be a bad dream. Please, God, let it be a bad dream. _Let me wake up at the prison. Let Andrea be there. Let Glenn and Daryl be safe, bickering at the cafeteria. Make this a bad dream, a bad dream._

But it wasn't. He knew it was real two hours later when the doors opened again and Andrea's body fell to the floor. He turned his head to her. His voice came back and he reached for her. "Andrea."

She merely whimpered weakly. But she opened her eyes. When she saw him there she dragged herself over. They lay parallel to each other and he reached over to touch her face.

Andrea looked at him, her eyes empty once again. "Are you sure you're real?"

He smiled and caressed her cheek. "I'm real, Andrea."

"Okay," she said, taking in his looks and his physical state. "What happened to you?"

"Got into a bit of a mess," he said. "Are you alright?"

"Are you alright?" she echoed.

Rick smiled. "I'm alright.

"I'm alright," she said and they both succumbed to an aching sleep.

* * *

He woke up on the floor, the pain dulled. It was still a struggle to stand up, but he pushed himself. Andrea was already awake, staring straight ahead again and he once again wondered what her state of mind would be today.

"Are you alright?"

His words seemed to snap her out of her reverie and she rushed forward. "Am _I_ alright? What happened to you?"

"Had a run in with a couple of tasers."

"Oh, God, Rick."

"I'm okay," patting her hand. "I had a good nurse."

She smiled at him and he saw more of the old Andrea then. Something seemed to occur to her suddenly and she reached inside her pocket. "Rick, Alice... she gave me these."

He smiled. He'd been in so much pain the day before he'd completely forgotten about them. "Me too," he told her, showing her his own.

"I've been saving them. Just in case."

She didn't need to elaborate on that one. She was saving them because she wasn't going to let them kill her. If she died, she was planning to go out her own way. It was a dark thought, but Rick sympathized. She'd been suicidal before, but this was different. She wanted a dignified death and he understood. Because there was no way he was going to let them destroy him, too.

He wasn't prepared when her door opened and neither was she. They only took her at night and it was still morning. No matter how much he yelled at them to leave her alone, they wouldn't even look at him. It was like he was invisible to them. And every time, after they left, he could never recall their faces. They always seemed as empty as Andrea, and Rick wondered just what in the hell was going on in that town.

He jumped back when his door opened, but nobody was coming for him. They threw her in instead and he caught her. She wrapped her arms around his neck right away and he gripped her. He could feel all her ribs through her clothes and it broke his heart.

"What was that about?"

"I don't know," Andrea said as she stepped away. She looked at her empty cell and Rick saw the fear in her eyes. He'd been trying so hard to keep his shit together that he hadn't let the fear come near him, but it was in him somewhere. He was finally starting to see this place for the nightmare that it was and it worried him immensely. What if they both died there? What would happen to Carl?

He hadn't been thinking much about Lori, and that troubled him. Their last words to each other had been harsh. He'd tried to make her understand why he needed to leave, why he needed to come with Daryl and Glenn. But she never got it, and they parted angry at each other.

Not that they'd been happy lately, either. His relationship with Lori was broken, he knew, and now he might never get the chance to fix it.

Best not to think about it. He needed to focus.

"Rick, if they bring someone new, we can't talk so freely," Andrea warned him. "They do that, sometimes. Send their own people in here to see what we're up to."

That was perhaps that most insane thing he'd heard in his life, or he would've thought so three days ago. Today it made too much sense and he worried that he was beginning to lose his mind like Andrea.

They never brought someone new, though, and he wondered what they were planning. All day he waited for them, but they only came at night.

This time, two of them. One held a gun to his face, the other reached for Andrea. It was much harder now that she was so close, that he could just reach her, grab her, and fight them. They'd most likely shoot him, but seeing her go when she'd been so near him mere seconds before was horrible.

And she always went so willingly. Always. Like she knew that's what she had to do. He wondered when she'd stopped fighting them. It must've taken a lot because Andrea was a survivor. Now she just gave herself to them like she knew fighting was futile, and it was so frustrating. Especially when they were so close he could probably rip the gun away from the guy if he wanted to.

Two hours on the dot.

He made sure she didn't fall to the floor. He'd been watching her hit the hard cement for nights and he knew that accounted for most of her bruises. He tried to guide her to the cot, but her body protested, curling against the wall instead and he wondered what that meant. He'd never seen her sleep in her cot. Always curled on the floor or in a corner. He sat next to her, and she was empty again.

"Andrea."

She looked at him like he was a stranger. "You're here, too?"

He smiled at her and kissed the side of her head. "I'm here."

She stayed quiet for a while. "That's not good."

Rick nodded with amusement. "No, it's not."

Andrea stayed still for a moment, just staring at the same spot, not moving, just blinking. He wondered if there was still something in there. Was there? They couldn't kill her like that, and just leave her body. Could they? Would day?

"Tomorrow," she suddenly said, quietly. "You won't like tomorrow."

Rick looked at her, his heart stopped. "Why?" But she said nothing. He realized she'd used the rest of her energy to warn him... something. "Why, Andrea?"

But she never said anything else, and he fell asleep with a feeling of dread.

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

No matter how many times he forced himself to sleep on the floor, his muscles couldn't get used to the hard, dusty surface. He woke up close to midnight, drunken voices outside rousing him from his uncomfortable slumber and quickly reminding him where he was.

Rick frowned, opening his eyes and looking up towards the small window. Two shadows were moving by, swaying from side to side due to what he knew had to be the effects of alcohol. Guards, he guessed. It's how the Governor earned some of his lackeys' devotion. Pretty amazing what the promise of alcohol can get you these days. But that was Woodbury, and suddenly Rick understood the lack of humanity in the guards' faces or why it was so easy for them to ignore him whenever they took Andrea. They weren't healthy people; ex-doctors, lawyer, accountants, fathers, teachers, pizza delivery boys... the guards were all were desperate alcoholics or junkies, willing to do anything the Governor asked them to do in exchange of alcohol or drugs, and that made them more dangerous.

In a way, it was kinda genius of the Governor to recruit these desperate types to do the nasty jobs. Just, the wrong kind of genius.

His left side was slightly warmer than his right and he looked at the figure next to him. Andrea was still awake, or had at least been awaken by the same voices. He couldn't tell. He could never tell. Besides, whether her eyes were closed or open, her being asleep or not didn't seem to matter. What mattered was that she was still in her near catatonic contemplation and Rick knew then it had to be drugs. She always came back blank, but became more lucid as the day wore on, only to be emptied again at night.

Rick just wished he knew what kind of drugs. He wished he could simply call Mark Samson in narco for a consult. But he couldn't do that anymore. He couldn't collect a blood sample and take it to the hospital. All he knew of drugs was what he'd encountered in rural Kentucky back in the good days. Meth, mostly. But this was no meth. No coke, no amphetamines, no heroine... this was something different, something he'd never seen before. Could it be a cocktail? Could they be giving her a combination of drugs? Suddenly he wished he'd pursued his dream of joining the FBI. At least that would've instilled in him a better education and understanding of drugs.

And she wasn't in her cell anymore. She was in his. For a while he thought that her proximity might allow him to see something in her he couldn't see from a distance. But if anything he had more questions now than before. Her pupils weren't dilated. He'd checked that first. Her pulse wasn't quick or slow, just normal, as was her breathing. Her temperature seemed fine, no fever. No sweating. No shaking. No nothing. Just stillness. Emptiness.

He'd tucked her under his armpit with her knees pressed to her chest, feeling a deep guilt induced urge to protect her. After all, if he'd gone back for her, if he'd allowed Daryl to find her she wouldn't be in this situation. So he kept her close, but it did very little to alleviate the guilt. Tucking her under his armpit made up for nothing. It didn't even protect her from the men who always came for her at night. He couldn't save her at the farm and he still couldn't protect her here and though her proximity did provide _him_ with a slight sense of comfort, he knew his proximity did nothing for her. Not while she was like this. Only a body; the real Andrea off somewhere else.

But he still held her close, because if somehow a tiny little spark of Andrea still remained in there, he needed her to know he had her. He'd try to protect her, care for her, keep her safe. He owed her that. He'd promised that, and he was a man who kept his promises. He'd save her this time. He wouldn't let her down.

Even when he moved she didn't stir, just stared, and when he nudged at her with a, "hey," her head turned to his but her eyes took longer.

He smiled at her. He didn't know why he always did. Maybe in hopes that showing her some kind of emotion might elicit some of her own. It never worked, but he always tried.

Suddenly she looked around the cell and her eyebrows furrowed. Something about the change of scenery, about his companionship, unsettled her but he didn't know what. And he wouldn't know what. That was the problem. Andrea knew everything. She'd been, in her own way, trying to warn him about the events of the upcoming days. In her own weird code, she'd try to tell him things about this place. Andrea was important. She _had_ to be. She told him the Governor had wanted _her _by his side. Rick didn't know how long she'd been at Woodbury, let alone imprisoned, but if the Governor had wanted Andrea Rick got the feeling she'd been trusted by the tyrant at some point. At some point, the Governor must've tried to seduce her by getting on her good graces, by trusting her and trusting himself to her.

It made sense. She seemed to know everything about this place, about these people, about their motives, motivations, plans. She knew their faces, their roles, she probably knew all their names and a completely layout of the town. But her mind was so broken she could never quite articulate anything right. Words came at her randomly and out of order. And later during the days, when she was more lucid, it was like everything slowly disappeared from her memory.

Something must've happened. Something more that she hadn't told him or couldn't remember. She'd said Michonne volunteered to take her place. It didn't make sense. If the Governor wanted Andrea he would have her. He wouldn't have allowed someone to just 'take' her place. There was a big chunk of information there missing. Could that be the reason why they kept taking her at night? Were they trying to erase everything she knew about Woodbury? Sounded like complete bullshit science fiction when he thought about it, but what else could they be doing to her?

In the beginning he worried that they were taking her, drugging her, and doing horrible things to her. But he'd helped plenty of rape victims in his life and after a quick assessment he'd come to the conclusion that no one was touching her, not in that way. But what could they be doing, then? How come each day she knew less and less? What really happened between her, Michonne, and the Governor?

He hadn't given up, and wouldn't give up, but it was a challenge. When she could help him, when she knew everything, she wasn't in the right state of mind to articulate it. And when she finally reached that state of mind in the afternoons, she'd simply forget what she'd known. Maybe they weren't erasing her memories. That sounded even more and more ridiculous the more he thought about it. But they were messing with her mind for sure, and for a very specific reason. He just needed to find out what that reason was.

There was something there in her eyes now. Like she was reaching for something. Like there was some sort of distant memory she was trying to recollect. She'd only been back less than two hours. The drugs were still in effect. She was still gone, but he saw the struggle. Rick turned to her.

"You know why they put you in here, right?" he inquired, and she looked at her cell.

And she looked beyond that cell. And beyond that one. The day before she'd talked about 'we'. _They do that, sometimes. Send their own people in here to see what we're up to._ It clicked for Rick then: at one point, other people had been in the prison. Who, he wondered? Who had occupied those other two cells? What happened to them? She kept looking at the cells like she could still see them in there and Rick grabbed her face and forced her to look at him.

"Andrea, I need you to try, please. Please, I need your help." He was down to begging, but it was no use.

She just brought her hand to her forehead and worried her face. The information was there. It was right there. He could see it. Sense it. But she couldn't _get_ to it. It was almost like it was on the other side of a chasm but there was no way for her to cross over or reach it. The words that came out were as close to it as she could get.

"It's just games."

Rick sighed, frustrated. He couldn't blame her, though. He felt for her, felt so guilty, so sorry. It was his fault that she'd been captured by the Governor, his fault that they were doing... whatever it was they were doing.

He pressed her to his side protectively and her head fell against his breast, and just like that she was asleep. The noises outside stilled around a quarter past midnight and he wondered if he'd be able to sleep, but closed his eyes and soon a restless slumber filled with dreams of endless puzzles came to claim him.

* * *

The next morning he was so preoccupied by his mission to put Andrea's head back together that he'd completely forgotten her warning from the night before. If he'd remembered, if he'd understood her words, maybe he would've taken the cot.

Andrea woke a little more lucid and extricated herself from him to sit at the cot and wait for breakfast. Rick watched her. She sighed and sank into herself, no doubt all her knowledge slowly dripping down a vast drain. He knew interrogating her now would be useless; she was still in that state between lucidity and oblivion. She tended to be more confused when she was in the between, with particles of too much information flying around her mind, but too random and out of order and slipping away.

"Smells like rain," she said suddenly. Weird how slowly yet quickly she came out of it, how she claimed over her body once more. Like an hourglass. And every night at the same time they'd flip it around to start the cycle over again.

He took a deep breath and she was right. Smelled like rain. Rick came to sit by her. He tended to thread the waters carefully in the mornings. In the evenings, as the hours passed, she became more and more Andrea. And at nights, after they returned her, she was not. He knew how to deal with those extremes. It was this Andrea, the one in the mornings, that he was most weary of.

He gave her a little smile. He couldn't help thinking it felt fake and somewhat patronizing. But he had nothing else to give. "Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"

"I just like the sound," she said and smiled a little, and something about the way she said that took Rick back to that department store when she told him about Amy, and he felt comfort. He'd felt comfort back then, too, as they stood there walking about mermaids with a hoard of walkers just feet away from them. "If you close your eyes it feels normal."

Rick smiled sadly at her. Rainy days. That was all she looked forward to. Only thing that made her happy. Back at the prison, happiness was a long table full of food, wine, good camaraderie, jokes, laughter, and endless chatter. In here, not just for Andrea but probably for others, too, happiness was just water falling from the sky to wash away the blood from the arena and their minds.

They ate their breakfast quietly, and Rick couldn't help but notice they'd added a cup of coffee to his tray. None for her. He wondered why that was, but decided not to protest and drank the liquid with delight. It was watered down, he could barely call it coffee, but it reminded him of home and comforted him in the same way rain comforted Andrea.

It was only afterwards that he realized what a mistake drinking that coffee had been. He should've given it to Andrea. Maybe it would've helped her speed the process, come out of her emptiness faster, or allowed her to remember something.

Rick thought of the night before and caught her looking at her cell again. He knew he needed to thread the waters carefully, but he was becoming desperate. They needed to get out. The Governor wasn't going to keep them prisoners forever. Sooner or later something bad would happen to either of them or both and Rick needed to stop it.

"Andrea, who was in those cells?"

She looked at him strangely, like she was surprised that he knew to ask of such information. She shook her head, but he wouldn't let her retrieve into herself. Saving her from the Governor was more important than not upsetting her.

"You said we," Rick told her. "I know you didn't mean you and me. Who was it? Who was there?"

Andrea sighed slightly and rubbed her forehead. Rick knew this was absolutely the worst time of day to be asking her such things, but time was a luxury they didn't have. She shook her head, truly looking troubled and disappointed in herself. "I don't know," she said. "I..."

"_Try_, Andrea, please."

Her face pained as she tried to do what he asked of her, but she shook her head again. "I..."

"Try!" he pushed one last time and it was too much, then. He went too far and this time it was him, not the Governor, who tore her apart further at the seams.

"It's not _there_," she finally cried, rising and walking away from him and the desperation and frustration was aimed everywhere but mostly at herself as adrenaline took over and her body moved with too much energy. And the tear made her mind explode even louder with nonsensical rambling. "It is, and then it's not, and I try to get it back, but I can't." She turned to him with anger and boiling tears in her eyes. "And you can't just _ask_ me and then think I'm crazy when I don't know, cause I'm _trying_!"

Rick rose right away, feeling like shit for pushing her so hard, and quickly pulled her into his arms to calm her. "Shh, I'm sorry." She tried to fight him but he pulled harder and she finally leaned into him, crying into his shoulder and Rick felt the hope dissolve, knowing he'd managed to do more damage than good.

"I'm _trying,_" she repeated against his shoulder.

"I know. I'm sorry," he insisted as he rubbed her back and she gripped him tight. So tight Rick felt short of breath, but he couldn't blame her. She was right. She _was_ trying. She always did. Every time he asked her something, she always tried. Even when he didn't, she'd try to warn him. Her words very rarely made sense, but she always tried. He realized she was still the strong one. Even in here, with her mind broken and her body shriveled down to skin and bones, she was still stronger than most people still alive. Stronger than him, even. Even her tears were hot and left scalding traces behind on his skin. Andrea was still a force, he realized. They hadn't taken that away. They'd just buried it.

"I don't think you're crazy, Andrea," Rick concluded, truthfully. "I _know_ you're not."

But she cried and he could feel her own hope dissolve away as her body sagged against his and she finally succumbed to the reality of her dire situation. "How do you know?"

It broke his heart to hear her question her own sanity. She'd been so stubborn about not being crazy. And now he'd pushed so hard she couldn't even trust herself. Whatever was happening inside her mind, he knew it was fabricated. It was them. They were doing things to her. Trying to break her, but she was fighting. Maybe not physically, but by trying, she was fighting them.

"Because you're still in here," he explained as best he could. He wondered if his words made little sense to her, like hers to him. "They're still keeping you here."

"Because I'm crazy, Rick," she sniffed. "Can't you see?"

"No," Rick said as he smoothed her hair. He pulled back and grabbed her face. This time, the smile he gave her was genuine. "Cause you said so yourself. You're trying. You know it's in there. If you were crazy, you wouldn't know to look." He watched as she tried to make sense of the words, and he smiled again and kissed her forehead. "You're not crazy. They're trying to make you crazy, but they won't. I won't let them, okay?"

When she didn't look convinced her held her hands and squeezed them tight, tight enough to reach her wherever she was. "We'll find it. I'll help you."

Andrea couldn't deny the sincerity in his eyes, couldn't deny the fact that even though they'd changed her, they hadn't changed Rick. He was still good Officer Friendly who went above and beyond to help those who needed him. And she needed him. Looking at the sincerity in his eyes, she somehow knew he might be her only hope.

So she nodded, gave him an uncertain smile, random bits and pieces of cut up words and incoherent information tugging at her mind, but in him she saw a clear thought, finally. Finally something that made sense. Finally something real that she could hold on to.

She wasn't alone with those tormenting fragments of crazy thoughts anymore. Rick was real and he was here to help her. And he would, she knew he would.

But something was very wrong about that. It was one of those scraps of unintelligible information flying around her mind. Something was wrong about Rick helping her, Rick here with her in the same cell. Something bad, something dangerous. But what? She, once again, couldn't reach for the answer. It was too far away from her grasp. It was there in those recently unoccupied cells, being kept away from her by the distance and the bars.

* * *

Rick managed to calm Andrea down and she sat on the cot next to him. His confrontation had made her retrieve further into herself, like he'd drained the little energy she'd managed to gather during the morning. Now she sat with her head on his shoulder. She'd initiated the contact and he couldn't help but notice it. After an hour or two, she held his hand and gripped it tight, so tight he knew it had to mean something.

He wondered if he'd ever stop trying to understand her actions, her looks, her inconsequential words. Andrea communicated in a different language now and he was determined to learn it. This was something new, because it didn't feel like she was seeking him out to find comfort. After an hour or two he began to realize: _she_ was comforting _him_.

Rick was too scared to ask, too scared to upset her again. And when he remembered her words from the night before, _'you won't like tomorrow'_, it was already too late.

He understood when they finally came for him.

Right away he knew he was going to need that stack of pills. This time it was in a dusty old warehouse. The dust got into his throat and he felt like gagging or coughing, but knew, once again, he didn't want to show weakness.

The Governor had that shit eating grin on his face as he saw him approach, once again, and Rick didn't even bother looking at the man. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction of showing anything in his face. Whatever came at him, he would take it. He'd die to protect the prison, to protect Carl. But he'd live, he'd fight to the end to save Andrea.

_Protect Carl. Protect Andrea.  
_

"I'm no Oprah, Rick," the Governor said as he stood aside. Rick didn't look at him. His eyes were on the shirtless big guy who stood in front of him. "I'm not gonna reach for your hand or give you a tissue. I asked you a simple question. All I want is an answer, then you can go. You can just run out of here and never look back. Simple as that."

It did sound simple. Talk and you're a free man. But it wasn't simple. If he talked he'd put Carl in danger. If he ran, they'd kill Andrea. After everything she'd been through, everything she'd been through because of _him_, he couldn't allow that. And he would _not_ allow that. The day he ran from this place, she'd be right there with him. Alive. Safe. And they'd go back to the prison and be reunited with their families and live in happiness and peace.

"Where is your group?"

Once again, silence, except for the groan that escaped him when the big guy delivered a punch to his stomach. Rick fell to his knees, the air knocked out of him. He held his ribs, trying to recover from the blow, but he wasn't allowed to. The big guy picked him up and forced him on his feet, and he had no choice but to endure the pain.

"I'd ask in another language, but it's been a while since freshman year Spanish," the Governor said. "I can sing it, if you'd prefer, but not much of a singer. I prefer talking. Where are they?"

Silence.

This time he dodged the punch the big guy threw at his face, and he recovered quickly enough to throw one back. It his the guy in the chin, but the brute merely shook his head and it was like he'd been hit with a feather. Suddenly he remembered his fight with Shane. Shane had been much bigger, but Rick was quicker, fast on his feet. He'd been able to take Shane, but this guy was much bigger and merciless.

The Governor asked the same question. Again silence. After the first punch to the face Rick prayed that if Glenn and Daryl were still around, they were keeping their mouths shut, because the beating he was taking was going to leave him broken for days.

Another punch to the face and he saw double, heard a high pitched noise in his left ear. He tried to defend himself, but his balance was off and he could barely stand on his feet. The big guy took this as an opportunity to deliver punch after punch.

"Come on, _fight_!" The Governor was actually egging him on to punch back and Rick tried but the guy in front of him was too big and too fast.

The Governor laughed. "This must be a great place, that you're willing to die for it. I'm gonna have so much fun taking over it."

He barely registered the words. He was seeing red and he knew it wasn't rage but blood covering his eyes. He stayed quiet til the end, til the big guy delivered one final punch to the jaw and he passed out, his last thought of the day Carl was born and knowing the beating was worth it if it meant his son was safe.

* * *

He came to and wasn't at the cell. Alice hovered over him and he could barely see her out of his left eye and he knew right away it was swollen shut.

She actually looked at him with sympathy as she cleaned him up. He wanted to talk to her, but words wouldn't leave him. There was an intense pain in his jaw and he wondered if it was broken. He thought about the virus again. Wondered if he was dying. He needed to tell her they were all infected. He needed to tell her not to take him back to his cell because if he died there he was going to turn for sure and kill Andrea.

He couldn't let that happen. He had to save Andrea. Get her out. He couldn't hurt her. He owed her.

"Don't move," she told him when he tried to sit up to warn her. She mistook his action, thought he was begging for drugs. "I'm sorry. I don't have much over here. I gave you more aspirin, it's in your pocket."

There was a tenderness in Alice that told him she wasn't like them. What was her story, he wondered? The thought drifted away quickly. Too much pain. His left ear was still ringing with that high pitched sound. And that new sense of urgency. Get out. _Get out._

"You'll be okay," Alice told him, and it alleviated some of his worries, but it barely made a dent on his alarm. "They don't wanna kill you, they just wanna make you stronger for game day."

He heard the words and they registered, but made no sense. Stronger for game day? Stronger? How would this make him stronger? Was this place full of lunatics? Was Alice just as crazy? Would Andrea end up like them? Would he?

"It's in three weeks, Rick," she warned him with a whisper, but he didn't miss the alarm in her tone. "You have three weeks to get out of here."

He must've heard her wrong. He must've. His left ear wasn't working. His right ear was, but he was dizzy, confused, and disoriented. He must've heard wrong. Was Alice on his side? Was she trying to warn him? Help him? Why?

The questions extinguished the little bit of energy he had left and he passed out.

* * *

This time he woke up in his cell. There was a warmth around him, a tenderness and caring. His vision was blurry but slowly it focused. His body was slumped, but somehow seated up, and that's when he realized he was between Andrea's legs, his back to her chest. She had a damp cloth and was running it through his face, cleaning the blood from his skin. She was holding him, and when he looked up there were tears in her eyes. Andrea was lucid again, meaning it must've been nighttime. They'd come for her soon. But she didn't seem worried about that. She sniffed and continued to clean his face. Rick tried to smile to reassure her, but it just made the pain worst.

"I'll kill him, Rick," she was telling him, kissing his brow and her touch actually made the pain lessen. Despite the sadness he also saw a fiery anger in her eyes, a fierce determination he'd seen before, back at the farm when she turned herself into a force to be reckoned with. He saw that same fire in her eyes now, and it was the closest thing to Andrea he'd seen since he got to Woodbury. And for the very first time he understood what she was telling him, loud and clear: she was just as determined to get him out of there as he was determined to save her.

She'd die if it meant saving him and the group, and he'd die if it meant saving her and the prison.

"You just watch."

Rick nodded. They'd have to make it a competition. When they came for her minutes later he vowed to kill the Governor himself. The Governor didn't know it yet, but he had two people who wanted to spill his blood and Rick made it his mission to beat Andrea to it.

When she returned she dragged herself over and lay by him, her eyes empty again. She looked at him, and at the sight of his swollen face she didn't even flinch.

But she held his hand and stared at his bloodied knuckles. "What a pair, we make," she whispered weakly

He laughed internally, because really. He could hear the old Andrea joke like that but she said it with so lack of emotion it sounded ridiculous, but so true.

Or maybe he was losing his mind, too.

* * *

It was close to midnight when the drunken voices woke him again.

He moaned in pain, knowing he no longer sat against the wall but lay on the floor instead. Andrea was pressed to his side, her hand still holding his protectively, her cheek on his shoulder. Rick opened his one good eye and looked around. The cell was blurry, his vision still faulty, and the damn ringing in his left ear wouldn't go away. He only prayed he wouldn't lose hearing on that side. Being hearing impaired in this new world put him in a significant disadvantage.

And the damn drunken voices. He frowned at them as he tried to get back to sleep, but couldn't with his head pounding. How he wished this was the old world so he could just open the window and shout at them to shut the fuck up. But this was the new world. Worst than the new world. This was Woodbury, where standing up for yourself could mean death for sure.

It took him too long, too long to realize it was not drunken voices. It wasn't voices. It was one voice. And it wasn't loud, it only sounded loud because of his headache. Rick strained to hear, trying not to move to still the pain.

"Hey!"

Hey? Did someone say hey? Was someone calling him? Was he dreaming, or suffering from a concussion?

"I know you can hear me, get your shit together, I don't got much time."

It had to be a dream. It had to be a hallucination. It couldn't be real.

"_Shit!_" the voice suddenly said, or Rick thought he heard it say, and then he heard quick footsteps running away from the building. He looked towards the window with his one good eye, but there was nothing there.

He closed his eye and let sleep take him, knowing he must've hallucinated the whole thing.

tbc


	5. Chapter 5

The words echoed in the subconscious of his mind all night and into the early morning. They came at him in dreams and different manifestations - a bird perched on his childhood home's windowsill, squawking them at him; an angry homeless woman in a park he'd often visited during childhood, shouting; finally his first drill Sergeant, towering over him with his massive puffed up chest, his breath reeked with tobacco and scotch.

"Get your shit together, boy!"

He practically felt the heavy hand smack him across the face and Rick awoke with a gasp, his body jumping back quickly. Pain immediately surged through him and he gripped at his face, misjudging his strength and injuring himself more. He groaned.

"Rick. _I'm sorry_."

"What?" he mumbled, still groggy, his hand pressing to his face and making it hurt more but he felt the urge to clutch at the pain. Irrationality made him believe that if he could trap it in his fist he could get rid of its torturous presence.

Andrea's hand gripped at his wrist and pulled it away from his cheek but the throbbing already had him wincing. He tried to open his swollen eye but it made the pain intensify and coupled with the third throbbing he felt on his ribs he felt like his entire body was broken beyond repair.

"Relax, you're making it worse."

He heard Andrea's voice again and he tried to do as she said, tried to breathe and unclench his muscles but the pain was more severe than it had been the night before. He felt Andrea's hand around his wrist still and he clasped it hard, knowing he was inflicting some of the pain he was feeling onto her but she didn't seem to mind and gripped back instead. Suddenly there was something cold on the side of his face and he flinched away, opening his good eye to see her pressing an old rag to his skin.

"It'll help," she explained to him, taking his hand and placing it on the piece of cloth so he could hold it himself. "I've been soaking it and putting it by the window to cool; it's getting chilly outside."

Rick ignored the rag and her words and looked at her. There was a hint of concern on her face, but something else caught his attention. He looked up to the window to try to discern the time but the sun was in the same place it had been each time he opened his eyes in the morning.

So it was still morning time, and Andrea seemed as lucid as she always did by mid afternoon.

Had they not taken her the night before? He was sure they did. Bits and pieces from the previous day were missing from his mind but he was sure he could remember them taking her and bringing her back, and her holding his hand afterwards as they drifted to sleep.

_What a pair, we make._

He was sure they had taken her. Why was she so different this morning? He wanted to ask, but he was afraid he'd upset her.

"Thank you," he said instead. It wasn't much, but the cold made his swollen eye feel a little better. He removed the cloth to look at it, and little spots of blood stained it. It was a worrying sight, the fact that he was still bleeding, and when he looked at Andrea her expression didn't make him feel any better.

"Bad, huh?"

She tried to smile. "You won't be on the cover of GQ any time soon, let's leave it at that."

He half smiled, bearing the pain for a second to feel the moment of levity and enjoy it, because he didn't know if they would ever be able to feel anything so light again. He saw so much of her old self then, and he knew she had to be struggling against whatever they'd done to her the night before. Her eyes were heavy and blinking slowly and she looked exhausted, but she pushed on as she ran the rag under the water one more time and came over.

"Sit."

He sat on the cot as she asked and she stood between his legs, tilting his chin back slightly to wipe over his skin, cleaning away the blood and no doubt other disgusting fluids that had gathered in his eye. The cloth had been in there for so long that it had lost all its silkiness, and even damp it scraped at his skin and aggravated his open cuts, but Andrea gripped it tight in her fist and a stream of cold water cascaded down his cheek, its coolness relieving him of some of the pain. His good eye stayed on her hand, rough and callused from her recent struggles and previous gun training, but her fingers touched his skin feather light and he allowed himself to close his eye and try to will the pain away.

He couldn't, not mentally, he'd never been able to do that. But a sudden distraction put the pain on the back-burner and he took a deep breath, inhaling the heat radiated by her closeness, the ticklish presence of her breath on his face as she leaned forward to clean the dried blood on his temple. She did it with such a light touch he didn't feel any pain, and when she walked away to run the rag under the water one more time to clean it, he missed the closeness.

As he did he felt a weird sensation. It took him a while to figure out it wasn't just one feeling but a collection. He couldn't name them individually, not really. But together they made him feel both troubled and ashamed for reasons he couldn't understand. She was nursing him, after all, of course it would be normal to miss that comfort. But the feeling remained there, nagging at him. He couldn't deal with any of it, not really, not in their present condition, so he told himself he only missed the comfort of the rag and the cool water, and not the way having her near had dulled his aches. He put the rest on the back of his mind to let it disappear forever.

He looked at her as she stood in front of the sink, washing the rag, pink water swirling down the drain. She looked tired, true, but there was something different. Maybe the way she looked at the rag, the way she narrowed her eyes at it like she needed to concentrate on it hard. Her shoulders were sagged, but that furrow of her brows that always appeared when she became stubborn about something was there. It was like she was fighting against the daze, fighting against the exhaustion and concentrating on his injuries and the rag, clinging to them like they were a raft, like they were keeping her together.

"Are you feeling okay?" he allowed himself to ask.

She didn't stop her movements, but he could still detect the sudden change in her, as if he'd asked something so deeply personal she didn't know how to react, scared she might give too much or not enough of her away. The rag was already clean but she kept washing it. He wanted to stand but the ache in his ribs wouldn't allow him to, and his head was pounding fiercely. Like her, he tried to fight his own troubles by deflecting his thoughts.

"Andrea."

She flinched so slightly he almost missed it and looked at him with a slight frown. Finally she turned the faucet off and approached him again, sitting by him like she didn't know where else to go. "I'm fine."

It was the vague answer he'd been expecting. He grabbed the cloth from her hand and pressed it to his face again. The pain returned and suddenly he wished he hadn't taken all his aspirin the night before. He knew Andrea had hers, but he wouldn't take from her batch. She might need them, still.

No other option but to ignore it. He tried her method, tried to concentrate on her like she was concentrating on him to forget her own aches. It kinda worked, but his eye was killing him and the headache was only getting worse. "You look tired."

"You were in pain," she said, still in that tone that made her sound like she was far, far away. "I couldn't sleep."

"I'm sorry."

"No," she said, looking at him and he saw the struggle in her eyes, like she could just fall asleep and pass out at any second. "I just wish I could help."

Rick smiled. "You are."

Instead of returning the smile she looked at him sadly, like he was an abandoned puppy at the pound. Suddenly he was glad there were no mirrors around; he wasn't sure he wanted to see what he looked like.

But the look on her face told him everything he needed to know. She was looking at the cuts and bruising on his face like they were hurting her as much as they were hurting him. Her fingers suddenly found the skin under his good eye and they trailed at something softly. His breath hitched, though he felt no pain, and that tangle of feelings nagged at him again.

Her fingers stayed there as she looked into his eye. If it hadn't been so soon after she was taken he was sure he would've seen the fire that was burning in a hidden corner of her mind, a fire fueled by the anger she was too numbed to feel. Anger and hate and promises of revenge. Hurt and sympathy and that voice she couldn't hear but was still whispering somewhere within her, vowing to hurt them for hurting him so badly.

"Which one was it?"

He grabbed her hand and set it down, replacing it with the rag. At first he didn't know why she asked. Why did it matter? But he realized after a moment that something in her needed to know, just like he needed to know who had hurt her. She had her own date with revenge. "Big guy."

Andrea nodded. "Bruce?"

"I don't know. Maybe," he said.

"Bald?"

"Yeah."

She continued to nod, and then a scowl came to her features as she saw the man clearly in her head. "He's the bad one."

Rick smirked. "One?"

Andrea shook her head. "They're all bad but Bruce... he enjoys hurting people. The rest just do it because they have to."

He took the information in and didn't ask anything more, but he, too, added Bruce to his list of people he would seek revenge on. The list was growing too fast by the day. His and hers. And if they somehow found a way to combine both lists Rick feared there wouldn't be anyone in Woodbury left alive by the time they escaped. Yet he felt no remorse at the thought of killing those who had hurt him, who had hurt Andrea. It scared him, knowing this, knowing that he was turning into a monster. But undead or not, monsters were the only inhabitants left on the planet.

Andrea's eyes were closed when he looked at her again, her body swaying slightly. The dark circles under her eyes were more prominent, and when he grabbed her arm she opened her eyes quickly and looked around, on alert.

"How long have you been up?"

When she realized where she was again she sighed and relaxed. "I don't know. Sun wasn't up yet."

"You should get some sleep. I'll stay up."

She shook her head, but as she did so her eyes began to close again. Rick put the cloth away and grabbed her arms, pushing her down on the cot and feeling glad that she didn't fight him. She was right, it was beginning to get chilly outside, and he knew if they didn't get out of there soon enough winter would come and they had nothing but a tattered old blanket and not enough layers of clothes. Still, he draped the small fabric over her body and she relaxed further, allowing sleep to come for her. He sat next to the cot, watching her and surrendering himself to the pain. He tried to use the time of silence to think of a way out, but the headache wouldn't allow him to.

He took a deep breath, and as he did so he closed his eye and suddenly memories from the night before came to him. Blurry and muffled as they were, they made his body jump in place. "Andrea," he said quickly, shaking her despite knowing she needed the rest. "_Andrea_."

Her eyes opened slightly and she looked at him groggily. "You're hurt," she murmured.

"I'm okay. Andrea," he said with urgency, shaking her again when her eyes closed. "Do you remember someone talking to us last night? Do you remember any voices outside?"

She opened her eyes again and looked at him, and after a moment she frowned and shook her head sadly as her lids closed. "No."

"Are you sure?" he pushed, needing to make sure. "Think."

"Rick, no," she said, letting sleep come for her again as she mumbled one last time. "Voices aren't real."

Rick looked at her. She fell asleep instantly and he thought about the night before some more. He couldn't remember much himself. He still wasn't sure if it had actually happened or if it'd been a dream. It was possible he wanted it to be real so badly that he'd imagined it. He hadn't been in the right state of mind and still wasn't. Hell, he'd probably suffered a concussion. It was entirely possible that the whole thing had only happened in his mind, like so much happened in Andrea's mind. Like most of the voices she heard weren't real; like she saw the ghosts of Dale and Amy.

But it seemed so vivid there. So real. He couldn't remember much of what the voice said, but could still taste its urgency. Had someone actually been out there the night before? Had someone tried to get in touch with him? Who? And why?

He knew Andrea couldn't help him this time, even if she could. Not that she was helping much with everything else, but this she hadn't been a witness to. Only him. But he'd been so groggy and in so much pain...

A sudden urge to punch a wall came at him again. He began to feel like this place was some sort of nightmare, like a huge maze with miles of twists and turns, haunted corners, traps and mind tricks. If he wanted to find a way out he knew he needed to keep going, never stop. Keep going despite the failed attempts, the beatings, the hopelessness. He couldn't stop. Couldn't stop for Andrea and couldn't stop for himself. For Carl. He had to find a way out but he was starting to think escaping, running from Woodbury, would be the easy part.

The hard part would be surviving Woodbury long enough to escape.

More beatings would come, he was sure of it. They'd keep taking Andrea every night until they shattered her completely. They'd keep taunting him, playing with him, like a cat plays with a mouse before it kills it. And kill him they would, unless he got out. He needed help, but knew he couldn't trust so easily. He couldn't trust anyone. Couldn't trust the Governor, couldn't even trust Alice. Even if Glenn and Daryl marched through that door right then, he knew he couldn't trust them, either. He couldn't trust the voice he thought he'd heard the night before. He couldn't trust those thoughts that steered him in one direction or another. He couldn't trust his eyes or what they showed him so easily, because everything in this place masked something much darker. Couldn't trust his ears, because it was possible they, too, had deceived him the night before. And he couldn't trust his feelings, because so often in the past they'd done him wrong.

Only one person he could trust. Andrea. Even the part of her that was broken. _Especially_ the part of her that was broken, because every day it became more and more evident that the answer to all his questions lay in that broken part of her. He just needed to put those pieces together.

It would be hard, but he could trust her. He'd have to. Because he was starting to think he couldn't even trust himself.

* * *

Despite his promise, he found himself asleep when he felt the door open.

Rick's body jumped in place. It was still daylight, too soon for Andrea to be taken, too soon after he'd been taken himself. What did they want now? Were they here to finally end him?

His body went on full alert immediately, but behind him, he felt Andrea rouse from her sleep languidly. He turned to face her, but she merely stared at the two men as they entered their cell, as if she'd been expecting their visit. There was no alarm in her eyes, no sense of dread, and something about that told Rick it would be okay.

But he still struggled when the two men grabbed him by the arms and picked him up. He struggled and cursed at them, and as they dragged him out he looked at Andrea, her face unreadable, but unworried. The bag covered his face quickly and struggling only made the pain increase, so he stopped after a few moments. Fighting never proved fruitful, anyway.

He flinched when he found himself inside a building, and when they set him down he was all ready to fight, but the men removed the bag from his head and walked away. It took him a while for his eye to adjust to the new location and he slowly realized the Governor wasn't there, but Alice was.

She was smiling at him warmly and he frowned at her. He didn't like the look of pity on her face. He didn't need her pity. He needed for her to stop playing games. He needed this nightmare to end. Her pity wouldn't help that in any way.

"How are you feeling?"

He chuckled dryly. "How does it look like I'm feeling."

She smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. Stupid question."

He shook his head and forced some of the anger to dissolve. It wasn't Alice's fault. He knew that. She'd been trying to help. Perhaps she was a victim in the same way he was, the same way Andrea was. He decided to relax, but his muscles tensed again when she approached him with a needle. He was ready to run out of the room when she set it down and raised her hands.

"I'm sorry, that was stupid. I'm sorry," she said, and he frowned at her with distrust. "It's... it's morphine. They found it this morning. I figured if someone here needed it, it would be you."

Rick looked at the syringe. Hell if he knew what morphine looked like or what its chemical name was. He knew he couldn't trust anyone. Couldn't trust Alice. Even if she was a victim herself, even if she was trying to help... he couldn't trust anyone. Only Andrea. Just Andrea and her broken mind.

"You don't have to take it. I can just give you more aspirin. It's just that I'm running out, and..."

_And you might need it soon._

He knew that's where she was headed. He might need it soon. The games were rapidly approaching. He nearly argued that he might need the morphine more than the aspirin come the end of game day, but it suddenly hit him that he wouldn't need either. Come the end of game day, he'd be dead. Dead men need neither aspirin nor morphine. Just six feet of dirt.

He nodded, not knowing why. The pain was so intense it was making decisions for him. His heart accelerated when she approached him with the needle and she really wasted no time. She found a vein on his right arm and injected the liquid, and a quick burning rushed through his veins. He chastised himself instantly, _What are you doing?_ A voice screamed. _What if it's poison? You don't know her, don't trust her._

But the burning subsided and was replaced with a calming warmth. His muscles relaxed and he felt the pain slowly leak out of him. Alice pushed him back carefully until he lay down on the gurney, closing his eyes and enjoying the effects of the medication. As he did so he felt her pull his shirt up, and when he looked at her there was a grimace on her face.

"Anything broken?" he mumbled.

"I don't know," Alice said. She tried to feel for his ribs but he flinched. "I can't just go by touch. If anything's broken it will have to heal on its own."

He nodded. He didn't care, really. Not his first broken bone and it wouldn't be the last. "Might buy me some time."

Alice looked at him, and he expected to see her features lighten with humor but her eyes looked at him sadly instead. "They won't change the date, so let's just pray there's nothing broken."

Rick sighed. "I thought you said they wanted me stronger."

"They do," she confirmed. "But this is the last game before winter. It's a big deal. People are literally counting the days, placing bets, and-"

"And I'm guessing nobody's putting any money on the stranger, huh?" Rick said bitterly. "I'm the Phillies, he's the Lakers?"

Alice shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know what that means, but it's important that you heal quickly, Rick. They'll throw you in there no matter what, and you _have_ to give it your all, because your opponent won't take pity on you. He'll use your injuries as an advantage."

He chuckled, because really. Give it his all? God only knew how many times they'd take him before the games, beat the crap out of him using the excuse that they were trying to "make him stronger", but really only breaking him to make sure his opponent walked away victorious. There was no way in hell he would win that game. His only salvation would be escaping before that day came.

As Alice began to examine his face he grew pensive. The effects of the morphine allowed him to think without the pain's distraction. He was still at a loss when it came to that, escaping. The problem wasn't that he didn't have any plans. On the contrary. He had so many plans he often didn't know which one to pick. The problem was not knowing where he was, how many people were in the town. If he could only get his hands on a map, or have someone draw the town for him... if he had someone who knew the people, knew the Governor, knew the way out...

He did have that someone.

Andrea.

She had all that information. It was all in her head. Getting it out was the problem.

Andrea. He'd left her curled up in the cot, cold and alone. Rick once again wondered what they were planning. They'd waited and waited, but days later, her cell still remained empty. They'd waited for a big revelation, for the big 'ta-da!', but nothing happened. They'd simply shoved her into his cell for no reason. Or for some reason, surely, but none that was clearly evident. It was another mind game, he knew. Some way of trying to break them down. Maybe make them occupy the same space to make them claustrophobic, crazy, or worse, turn on each other. It was another mind game, he was sure of that. He just wasn't sure he knew their objective.

And he still didn't know what went on during the two hours a night she was gone.

When Alice poked at his cheek his jumped and remembered where he was. He looked at her. She examined his wounds with careful precision but the wounds didn't matter to him anymore. He'd deal with the pain. He needed answers.

"Andrea won't tell me what they're doing to her," he told her, watching her face closely for her reaction, waiting for her features to give something away.

Alice remained quiet as she continued to work, as if she hadn't heard him. He grew frustrated by her silence, but only realized her silence _was _the answer. Someone was suddenly watching. Or listening.

He remained quiet and she must've known these people for a while, because finally she knew when to answer him.

"The Governor is greedy," she started quietly, dabbing at his swollen eye with a damp cotton. "Woodbury was a fun project for him when he arrived, but now he wants more. And to get more, he's gonna need a bigger army."

Rick looked at her and wondered if he was hearing crazy things again. Maybe the morphine was making hallucinate the conversation? It all sounded so fake and hokey, but with the dead roaming the Earth he had to assume everything was possible.

"He sees a soldier in Andrea. She's smart and has a strong personality. And she can fight. She killed Josh at the arena," Alice continued.

Rick frowned. He was about to interrupt her with more questions, but she continued quickly.

"But she's stubborn," Alice said. "She's resisting him too much. Other people come to his side easily. It's taken him longer with her."

"What?" Rick said, wishing she'd damn stop talking in riddles. "What is he doing to her?"

"Persuading her," she said solemnly, "to make her love him and declare her devotion to him."

Rick looked at her for a while, digesting the words. They were cryptic, but he could only assume they meant one thing. "What, like brainwashing?"

Alice looked at him. "If you believe in that stuff. _He_ clearly does."

He laughed. He laughed because that was ridiculous. Was she real? And if she was, was she _insane_?

"You're all set."

Rick looked at her. What, that was it? _Andrea's being brainwashed, goodbye?_

Before he could ask anything else his chaperones were waltzing through the door. Rick looked at Alice for further answers, or for any kind of sign, really, but she merely ignored him and began to clean her equipment. The bag was placed on his head again and he was taken back, her words echoing through him the whole time. _  
_

When they threw him into the cell he caught himself. Andrea sat up on the cot, looking more alert than she had been in the morning. They'd be coming for her soon.

"Better?"

He nodded and came to sit down next to her carefully to minimize the pain in his ribs. With this new information, ridiculous and no doubt false as it appeared to be, he suddenly didn't know what to say or do. He was sure they'd been drugging her, _that_ was evident. The lack of memories... he'd chalked that up to the drugs and perhaps some cranial injuries. They'd been roughing her up, despite what Alice had said, and there was still that chunk in her timeline at Woodbury missing. The time before she was jailed, back when the Governor had wanted her for God knows what. Michonne's interference. Andrea's time in the arena...

Something else that Alice had said had him curious. He looked at Andrea. She was staring at her hands and they were well into the afternoon, at the peak of her lucidity. He wondered how he should breech the subject. He wondered if it even mattered. Maybe not. But there was still a small chance that it would allow him to put down another piece of this confusing puzzle.

"Andrea." She looked at him and he hesitated. He could see the trust there, in her eyes. He could see how much she was relying on him to keep herself grounded. He wondered if it was worth it, to break that trust. He'd hurt her the day before by pushing her too hard. He didn't want to do it again. But it could mean survival. It could make a difference.

"Tell me about your fight," he said, leaving it as vague as that.

She looked down with a frown, like suddenly there was something fascinating about her fingers. "Why?"

He shrugged his shoulders, threading the waters carefully. "Just wanna know what I'm in for."

Andrea seemed to relax slightly and nodded. "I, um... I don't remember much."

Rick continued to look at her, trying to decide whether she was lying or if the events had simply been altered in her mind. If Alice was right (which he was still trying to decide), it was possible. "You said they made you fight a big guy."

"Yeah," she replied, frowning at the memory. "He tripped. I... it was an accident."

"How did he trip?"

She flinched and right away he felt like taking the question back, but when she didn't fly off the handle he stayed quiet. She grew pensive and troubled, like she was trying to reach for something in the darkness. He didn't like that look. Not at all. Andrea had never had memory problems before Woodbury. She'd told him something the first day, had practically spelled for him every moment of the game. Now it seemed like someone had taken that memory from her. Who? And when?

"I don't know." When she looked at him, he saw the sincerity in her eyes and knew she wasn't lying. "I don't really remember."

Rick smiled. "Okay."

She nodded, but he saw the wheels turning in her mind. "I don't remember, I... I can't remember his face."

"You said the walkers got to him."

"Yeah," she said with conviction but then her eyebrows furrowed and she looked at him questioningly. "Did they?"

He smiled at her sadly. "Yeah, I guess they did."

"Yeah," she sighed, her face troubled, like she was seeing the events happening before her. "It was horrible."

"I bet," Rick said soothingly, stroking her back. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"Yeah."

He continued to look at her as she nodded, as if she was trying to convince herself above all. Rick changed the subject and began to talk to her about other things, because he didn't want to further break her. His conversation with Alice rang in his ears, and as he stared at Andrea he wondered. If Alice was right, if they were messing with Andrea's mind... was it even possible? Brainwashing?

No, it couldn't be. He just didn't believe in any of that nonsense. What were they doing, waving a watch pocket in front of her and putting her to sleep? Making her act like a chicken for their amusement? The idea was so ridiculous he almost laughed. Try as he might he just couldn't believe in it. Those things only happened in cheap Vegas acts and if that.

But it continued to nag at him all afternoon. He couldn't stop hearing Alice's words. He scrutinized all of Andrea's movements, tried to decipher everything she said, looking for hidden, deeper meanings. He thought about her fight. Thought about his first day there. She'd told him about the game, about Josh, about the walkers, the Governor, the townspeople. Now it seemed like all those things were gone from her memory. Now she was starting to doubt her own mind.

Suddenly he wished he hadn't dismissed Alice so quickly. He wished he could go back and ask her more questions. He was skeptical about the whole brainwashing deal, he just couldn't believe in such things. But he couldn't deny that they were playing with Andrea's mind, somehow. Whether it was the drugs, or their silly games... His stubbornness resisted the idea. But if Alice had told him the truth, if they were really "brainwashing" Andrea...

Could he continue to trust her, then? Could he continue to rely on her? He'd been so sure, _so_ sure that Andrea was his ticket out. So sure that all the information he needed was hidden somewhere in her mind. But if Alice was right, then Andrea's mind was just as dangerous as the people in this forsaken town. Andrea herself was as dangerous.

He felt the weight of the realization hit him painfully. He knew he couldn't give up, but it was only him against God only knew how many. Them, trying to turn Andrea into a killing machine, versus him, broken and helpless as he was. How could he compete with them? How could he make sure that she stayed on his side? How could he save her?

When they came for her, for the first time he didn't struggle. For the first time he decided to keep calm, keep a lid on his emotions and try to stay rational. Two hours later, when they brought her back, he caught her and guided her to the cot. Once again she protested and sank onto the floor, her back against the wall. Rick sat next to her, his injuries throbbing painfully, but he ignored them and concentrated on her.

How could she be comfortable like that? Her back against the wall, her knees pressed to her chest. He'd found her like that the first day and he found her like that each morning. He inched closer and wrapped an arm around her, tucking her under his armpit. She didn't move, didn't say anything, just stared straight ahead as she did every night.

"Andrea."

She didn't answer. She never answered the first time. Often he had to repeat her name several times before she even moved. Once again he racked his brain for some kind of memory that could help him identify the drug that they were giving her, but he was at a loss. Whatever they were giving her was something he had never encountered during his days as a cop.

Alice's words continued to torment him.

_Persuading her._

Persuading her. A very elegant way to put it. He knew by the bruising around her body that whatever they were doing to her was everything but elegant. Every inch of him resisted that ridiculous notion of brainwashing, but something in him was beginning to weaken. His fingers grabbed her chin and he carefully turned her head towards his. The emptiness was there in her eyes, icy blue and cold. Distant. Like she wasn't in there. Like she was somewhere else. He didn't say anything, didn't ask, because he knew that if he asked her something she'd just respond with her insane ramblings. Words that never made any sense to him. For the first time he wondered, were those words really hers? Or were they the Governor's? How much of her had they taken away and how much of them had they forced into her mind?

He remembered what she'd told him the first day.

_They're nice sometimes._

He thought of her hallucinations, her stillness, how willingly she always went with them. He thought of her physical injuries and how she never seemed to be bothered by them. He thought of how she slept each night and how she didn't seem uncomfortable by the ache he knew she had to feel each morning in her muscles. He thought of how she didn't seem connected to her body at all, only to her mind. He thought of how she struggled against it, how she questioned everything she said or thought. How she'd tell him something one day, only for it to change the next.

It was her mind. It was her mind they wanted. No doubt in the end they wanted her in their army, but they were starting with her mind. Her body would easily follow. Much as he hated to admit that whole brainwashing mumbo-jumbo, it was starting to make sense. They were manipulating her mind with drugs. He didn't want to admit it, but there was too much evidence and suddenly he felt every one of his plans collapse and crush to the ground.

This changed everything. This made this nightmare much, much worse.

He heard her mumble something, but her eyes were still empty, staring straight ahead. He inched his head closer to hear it, but couldn't understand the words.

"What is it?" he asked, but she didn't seem to hear him. He wondered if she even knew he was there. "Andrea?"

She looked at him finally but there was very little recognition in her eyes. This wasn't Andrea, he knew. This was someone else. This was the person they were trying to turn her into. It sent a chill through his spine.

"You didn't kill him," she whispered, and he knew right away she wasn't talking to him but to herself. Maybe the real her. "He tripped."

He nodded, and that seemed to alleviate a worry in her mind. She rested her chin atop her knees and her eyes drifted close but every once in a while she continued to mumble incoherent things at herself._  
_

Rick gripped her tighter, pressing her against him. The hopelessness tugged at him, but so did anger. He let the anger take over because he wasn't going to give up. He couldn't. No matter how stacked the odds were against him, even if he couldn't trust Andrea, he couldn't just let the Governor win. He couldn't let them take her so easily, and there was no way in hell he'd let them take him.

So they were playing mind games, in every literal sense. The Governor wanted Andrea on his side. He wanted to destroy her and turn her into a killing machine. And Andrea was resisting him. Alice had said so.

_Other people come to his side easily. She's stubborn. She's resisting him too much._

As broken and weak as she was, she was still fighting them. In that moment Rick admired her more than ever. She was still strong enough to resist the drugs, resist their beatings and resist their mind games. And if she could still show that immense amount of strength, then so could he. And he would.

She seemed to sense his new-found determination, because she turned to him slightly and her fist gripped at his shirt, like she desperately needed something from him, and he gripped her tighter. It was that strength in her grip, despite her physical and emotional exhaustion, that cemented it for him.

He wasn't out, not yet. The Governor could could try to persuade her as much as he wanted, but he would never have her. Andrea didn't belong to Woodbury. She belonged to him. He wouldn't allow her to become the Governor's puppet assassin. Two could play this brainwashing game, after all.

Andrea wasn't the Governor's weapon. She was _his_ weapon. And he was going to take a page from their book and unleash his weapon upon this hellhole of a town and watch that evil asshole die by her hands.

tbc


End file.
